Team America: World Police

            I want to start off by saying that Team America: World Police is one of those movies that is meant to be dumb and was hilarious. Since the whole movie was a joke there were no serious themes however, the film contained many elements of satirical comedy, as well as being made entirely with marionettes. The opening scene is set in Paris and very “Inception-like” because the first scene is a shot of a puppet in front of the Arc de Triomphe wearing the stereotypical striped black and white shirt and beret, screaming “Sacre bleue!”, but then pans out to show the bigger picture and you see it’s actually a street performer marionette controlling an even smaller marionette. I think they did this to show that they could make a puppet movie look good, because when you see the first puppet it looks very fake and the background is painted but when it pans out and becomes the wider shot, you see the intricacy of the puppets and the set. This is also wear you see the theme of stereotyping in satirical films. All the French puppets are wearing berets or carrying baguettes, there are statues of French poodles, and mimes in the streets, which are paved with croissants. In this scene, terrorists plan to destroy Paris but Team America intervenes and “saves the day” but also destroys the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, and Arc de Triomphe. There is a long shot of the city completely destroyed and Team America is saying “Don’t worry guys, we’ve saved the day!” as the French people look around in horror. There was lots of irony in this film. The dramatic element I found the most impressive in the film was the set because of how well things were replicated and how detailed it was and I know that takes a lot of time. They replicated the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx, the Louvre, and Times Square. The scene that introduces the main characters Gary mocks the movie “Lease” and all the actors keep repeating and singing is “Everyone has AIDS”. And it is from this performance that team leader Spottswoode decides he would be the perfect man to infiltrate a terrorist organization. Every decision made is just so stupid and cliché. The terrorists in the film come from the made up country of Derkaderkastan and speak jibberish and are being supplied weapons by Kim Jong Il, who is impersonated with a totally over the top Asian accent. There are several archetypes present. There is the “Barbie” which is Lisa. She wears pink camo and when she is introduced to Gerry, dreamy non-diegetic music is playing and there is a camera tilt up from the floor to show off her body. Chris is the veteran, wise guy who is the best team member and doesn’t like Gary at the beginning of the film until he proves himself at the end. There are lots of clichés like when Lisa goes to take down a terrorist and says “Hey terrorist, terrorize this!” or when Chris corners a terrorist who ran out of bullets so Chris puts down his gun to fight him with his hands to “make it more interesting”. Directors also made a point to make it as stereotypically “’Merica” as possible. Their theme song is “America, America, f*** yeah” and songs like “Freedom isn’t free” play throughout the film. There is a part of the movie when Gary is deciding whether he will work with Team America and goes to visit national landmarks in DC, that were not remade. They actually shot the real Lincoln memorial with the doll posing next to it all small, which added some humor. They pretty much made fun of as much stuff as they could. They imitated actors like George Clooney, Sean Penn, and Alec Baldwin and made a joke of liberal actors wanting to be activists and in the end it turns out they’re the bad guys.  90% of the movie didn’t make sense but that’s what made it so funny and just classic satirical comedy.